


Stranger Things Have Happened Across the Sea

by AWitchWithTheFairies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drarry mention, F/F, Pansmione - Freeform, Paris (City), Summer Romance, Summer Vacation, bisexual hermione, contains some strong language, i low key made myself emotional writing this, just so happens she had to be across the channel to do it, lesbian pansy, so here it is, this is kind of a little imagining of how they come to date, you just know pansy has been waiting forever for an opportunity to ask hermione out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 20:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7546261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AWitchWithTheFairies/pseuds/AWitchWithTheFairies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione is returning from a solo trip to Paris on a coach heading to Calais for the ferry. Unfortunately the air con is broke, and the windows are stuck closed, and Hermione is too afraid of the threat of expulsion from Hogwarts to try any magic. Luckily there might just be a saviour on board. Unluckily, that same person is probably the last person she'd have liked to run into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger Things Have Happened Across the Sea

Sweat dripped down Hermione’s body, forehead, cleavage, and back, the hydration she so desperately needed pouring out her pores. She tried the window above her head again in desperation, but of course it was still stuck tight. There were no more layers of clothes to remove whilst staying in any way decent. Hermione was suffocating.

This was the main downside of travelling alone. Still sixteen she couldn’t use magic whilst out of Hogwarts at risk of being expelled. Without any legal witches or wizards around there was no one around for small problems like this that were only a flick of a wand away from being solved.

Hermione had embarked on a solo weekend away to Paris, eager to explore the sites alone where she could admire them for as long as she wished, breathe in their history, without someone else getting bored and wanting to move on. She had spent a full guilt-free afternoon in Shakespeare and Co with a cappuccino and a mountain of books that would later barely fit in her carry-on.  But now she would be on this coach for hours as they headed over the channel, and the bloody air con just wouldn’t work.

Just when she had lost all hope, she heard a humming sound from a few seats further back on the bus. She snapped her head around and recognised the girl sitting below the one working fan on the coach. It was her sworn enemy, Pansy Parkinson.

Hermione span back around thankful that Pansy hadn’t been looking in her direction. She knew how gleeful this would make her and Hermione couldn’t bear it, watching Hermione suffer all because even out of the country she was too afraid of the risk of getting expelled.

Whilst Hermione didn’t want to give her any sort of satisfaction, she wasn’t sure she could bear this heat any longer. She might have to suck it up and ask to sit next to her. The worst that could happen was Pansy laughing in her face, right? Well, actually, she might jinx Hermione, but any action she took in retaliation would be strictly self-defence, and she was familiar enough with the law to know exactly how much she could get away with.

As she was thinking through her options she had absent-mindedly turned around for another look, and this time Pansy spotted her.

“Hey” said Pansy, uncrossing her legs that had been up on the next seat, and standing up. She was walking down the aisle towards Hermione, and Hermione gulped.

Unfazed by a complete lack of reply, as if she neither noticed nor cared, Pansy continued;

“What you sittin’ like this in this heat for anyway?” and with a swish of a long, black wand Hermione was able to breathe again. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of the icy breeze against her sticky skin.

When she opened her eyes, Pansy was sitting next to her.

“So, what were you in Paris for?” asked Pansy, whilst simultaneously creating more leg room for them both with yet another spell.

“Erm, Pansy?” Hermione hesitated “why are you talking to me?”

Pansy raised her eyebrows, then knocked her head back in laughter.

“Well, that’s nice talk coming from Dumbledore’s golden girl isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh come on.” Pansy scoffed. “The shit you three have pulled? What do you think would have happened if I dunno me, Draco, and Blaise had gone after the Philosopher’s Stone in first year? Or any Slytherin for that matter. It certainly wouldn’t have meant an extra hundred and fifty points!”

“Well if any Slytherin went after the stone it would have been to steal it for themselves, not stop someone else from stealing it! That is until you’d realised it was Voldemort after it of course, then you’d just hand it over.”

Hermione noticed Pansy flinch at the mention of the dark lord’s name. This amused her, and she spat out, “what? I thought your family were all supporters? Your boyfriend’s daddy still bears the dark mark, and I’m sure you’re jumping for the chance of a new tattoo now that he’s returned.”

Pansy’s face was scrunched up tightly. Hermione had angered her. _Good_ she thought.

“You’re such a fucking little know it all aren’t you? Well how about you don’t start mouthing off about things you don’t understand. You can’t learn everything about our world from a textbook; you’d know that if you’d lived in it long enough.”

“Oh why are you talking to me Pansy?”

“I was bored okay? Merlin’s fucking beard, you’re the first person I’ve been able to have a conversation with since yesterday morning, it was driving me mental.”

“Ok. Well you’re right, I don’t know anything about any of that sort of thing. Why would I? I’m just a filthy mudblood after all, right?”

“Oh for Merlin’s _sake_. You Gryffindor’s and your fucking victim complexes.”

“Victim complex?” Hermione’s voice was raising “I _am_ a victim, muggle borns are being hunted and _killed_!”

“Alright alright keep your shitting voice down!” Five minutes went by without a word from either of them, sitting still listening to the rumbling of the engine. It was Pansy who broke the silence. Unlike Hermione, her curiosity was much stronger than her stubbornness.

 “Who did you think is my boyfriend?”

“What?” Hermione turned back around from gazing out of the window, pulling herself back into the present.

“You said my _boyfriend’s_ daddy earlier. What the hell were you talking about?”

“Well I thought, well … Draco.”

Pansy spluttered and dropped her head forward into her lap, unsuccessfully trying to hold back the laughter that rose up inside her. She sat back up, and Hermione noticed her eyes were watering.

“D-Draco?” Pansy was laughing out loud this time.

“Well I don’t see why that’s so funny! It certainly looked that way!” Hermione looked stern. She didn’t like to be laughed at; she could only just about take it from the boys. Pansy’s face looked like it was trying to smile at her.

“Oh honey, Draco’s even gayer than I am!”

The news hit Hermione like two bricks. Draco and Pansy both … _What?_ But?

“Merlin, Hermione, and I thought lightning boy was the only oblivious one. I didn’t count you and Ginger as being quite as self-involved.

“Alright, Jesus. Just because I don’t pay much attention to your social life!”

“Oh but enough to assume we were dating? Come on Hermione, don’t you see the way Draco _looks_ at Harry? Why do you think he’s always pulling those stunts to get his attention? Fuckin’ hell, Harry’s all he ever talks about!”

“Well Harry’s a little too obsessed with Draco too, but certainly not for that reason!”

Pansy raised an eyebrow, and Hermione only needed seconds more to realise. “Oh!” She stared into the seat in front of her, her cheeks flushing pink. She’d thoroughly embarrassed herself, and all because she hadn’t even taken a minute to consider that she wasn’t the only bisexual of the group.

But who’d have thought _Pansy_. Well Hermione had _thought_ about it, in that she had noticed the way the cut of Pansy’s raven hair showed off her soft, pale neck, the way she liked to hitch up her skirt just that little bit higher, or the way she nibbled on her lower lip when concentrating in class.

“So your parents picking you up when we get into London or what?

Hermione was taken off guard by the question. The coach had only just arrived in Calais, so they hadn’t even gotten onto the ferry yet.

“Oh no. I told them I’d be alright getting back on my own. You?”

“You’re joking aren’t you? Don’t think they’ve even noticed I’ve been away. Been a bit pre occupied lately.” And for what felt like the first time, Hermione saw something that looked like sadness in Pansy’s face. In the last half an hour the two had shared more words than in their entire five years at Hogwarts, and already Hermione had learned that there was so little she knew about Pansy. She had quite possibly, though she hated to admit it, been too quick to judge her. Pansy had become a puzzle to solve, a mystery to uncover, and Hermione was willing to dig deep to find her way to the woman beneath.

Pansy spoke again. “So I was thinking, it won’t be too late when we get back, so if you don’t have to rush off home or anything, maybe we could grab a drink or something. I’m gasping for a gin and tonic.” It didn’t sound like a question. Pansy was clearly confident that Hermione would say yes, but Hermione realised that a response was still required.

“Yes. Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Cool.” Even in that moment Pansy’s face remained still, not for a second showing her excitement. It was a skill that she had been practicing for so long she wasn’t even conscious that she was holding back anymore. It felt natural, and it felt safe.

Hermione on the other hand was pink in the cheeks again; her heart beating so loud that she worried Pansy could hear it. Though her smile was small, there was no hiding the dimples. Pansy caught a glimpse of Hermione in the corner of her eye; saw the half-moon of her lips and the small craters in her cheeks.

If Hermione hadn’t been too embarrassed to look, she would have seen Pansy’s face relax into a smile.


End file.
